Steven Gerrard can expect a message from me reminding him of the day many years ago when he told me he didn’t want to be a manager!

Actually when you’re younger you don’t think about coaching... I was the same. But the bug bites you in the end, and then you’re hooked.

I was more interested in playing, always desperate to play and fighting with the coaches if I didn’t.

Then wham. It comes up as you progress in your career, and you are analysing everything, studying and criticising. Then you start wondering if you can do it better.

I remember being encouraged by Gerard Houllier to offer my opinion on the tactical side and team issues, so one day when I was a sub on the bench I pointed out a couple of flaws in how we were set up – and our coach Sammy Lee turned round and snapped at me to shut the... well, you know the rest.

Gerrard has taken the reigns at Ibrox (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Gerrard was greeted by thousands of fans last week (Image: Getty)

Stevie will be the same. He is a competitor like me, like all the top players always are.

So if he wasn’t interested as a kid, then as he progressed and with every defeat, every set back, he would be thinking “I’d have done it like that”.

I can guarantee 100 per cent that’s what he’s thinking inside now: ‘I can do this better than anyone else’.

Now he’s got the chance and I think it’s magnificent for him. Rangers is a massive club, and my message for all those who say it’s an impossible job, is, well, completely wrong.

He’ll have a honeymoon period anyway, because they are so far behind Celtic at the moment no one in their right mind will be thinking he can go in with a magic wand and turn it around straight away... except him maybe!

Gerrard and Fowler during their Liverpool playing days in 1999 (Image: PA)

The pair pose together for a picture in more recent times (Image: Getty Images)

In fact, let’s get it straight. He’s not catching Celtic, not at the moment, not unless Brendan Rodgers leaves and they make a disastrous appointment. But that doesn’t matter.

What matters is how he handles the pressure, expectation and focus of a huge club.

In terms of career, I can tell you there will be clubs in the Premier League looking at him now thinking ‘Rangers are bigger than us, if he can handle that and do well, he can handle our club easily’.

He doesn’t even have to knock Celtic off their perch, just make it uncomfortable for them to sit on it for long.

Celtic have been the dominant force in Scotland for seven years (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Rangers have a bit of a rebuilding job on their hands (Image: REUTERS)

People are saying he shouldn’t get the job because he has no experience, making it a gamble. Well, EVERY managerial appointment is a gamble. West Brom went for experience when they sacked Tony Pulis, a tried and trusted performer in Alan Pardew.

He’d been in that position before, kept clubs up, moved them up the table. On paper, it wasn’t a risk. But every appointment is a risk, as his experience proved.

Jose Mourinho is a proving a bit of a risk for Manchester United because they’re no closer to City, and there isn’t a manager currently operating in football with a better record.

And anyway, he’s not going in there on his own, is he? It’s about the team he creates, the experience he gathers around him.

Gerrard will be desperate to get off to a good start in senior management (Image: AFP)

Gerrard has been tasked with closing the gap on Celtic (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Half the job of management is accepting you have weaknesses – no one, not even Pep Guardiola – can do everything, has the full skill set, because it’s an endless, impossible job.

The best managers identify where they need support, where their skills need strengthening, and they go out and find the best talent in that area.

They create a team around them, and I’ve been in that position as a player where you feel the coaches are as important as the manager. It NEVER is just about the manager.

I’m sure I remember Gareth Southgate coming out at Middlesbrough during their UEFA Cup run, and suggesting they got there in spite of the boss Steve McClaren.

Gerrard is hopeful he can get off to a great start at Rangers (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Fowler has given his backing to Gerrard (Image: Liverpool Echo)

Bit harsh, but Gareth was always a diplomat, so I was inclined to believe him.

Stevie will attract players too, they’ll want to work with him. Some of them will have been kids when he was playing and had pictures of him on their walls. That’s a big draw.

He has the character to do well. At Liverpool, I saw that when he was a kid asked to make up the numbers in training with the first team squad.

I didn’t know him at all, but had heard a great deal of him, and you could see it was true straight away.

He has a big personality and in working with him for so long, I can tell you he always commanded respect, even when he was 18 or 19.

I think that may be the asset he requires most at Rangers, and I think that is why he will be a great appointment for them.